Letter to AJ

Let me start by saying that I am forty-five years old, and I fully plan to live until I am at least ninety, and maybe babysitting your kids or grandkids.  But you never know about these things.  I feel great, but I am mortal.  Just like Margo.  Our bodies don't last forever.  I wanted to write to you, then, to get down in words so many of the things that are going through my head about you, things that I don't think you will understand right now, but maybe you will later.  But later is an iffy proposition.

First, you are wonderful.  I love you.  You have shifted what that idea means to me.  I don't know how to explain it.  I love your mom, and the best thing that had ever happened to me was meeting your mom and the two of us choosing to share our lives with each other.  This is what makes this life livable, really, the opportunity to share it with someone.  When you came along (later this happned with your sister, too), suddenly there was a new person in the world, a person who was a little bit of your mom and a little bit of me and a little bit of something new.  It was amazing and profound, and it has never stopped being that for me, for both of us.  I don't know if you feel special, and I do realize that everybody comes into the world this way, but you are special to me, unlike anyone else.  And so somehow my heart got bigger, becaue not only is there still the wonderful thing of sharing everything with your mom, somehow I also get to share everything with you, and now everything with Julia.  There seems to be a lot more of me than I could have ever imagined before the three of you came along.

Life can be kind of stupid and lonely, especially when you are by yourself.  I don't think anything upsets me more than thinking of you unhappy.  I have been a very, very unhappy person at times in my life, and I don't ever want you to feel that way.  But I know I can't protect you from everything.  I will always try to help you the best way I can think of, but some of this you're going to have to figure out on your own.  I guess what I really want to do is equip you to meet that.  And as long as I'm around, I want you to feel like you can talk to me about anything.  I am not very smart or wise, but I love you and I will try very hard to listen to what you are trying to tell me.

I don't know how I ended up so damn happy.  In some ways, I just got lucky and things kind of broke my way.  Yes, I grew up and toughened up a bit, and did some soul-searching, and nobody else could have done that for me.  But I also got very lucky.  I had people who gave me their time and love, who shared themselves with me.